Professor Jiandong Zhou

Assistant Professor
Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care

• BSc (BIT), MSc (BUCT), Ph.D. (CityU), PostDoc (Oxford)

	jdzhou@hku.hk
	HKU Scholars Hub
	ORCiD Connecting Research and Researchers

Prof. Zhou was jointly appointed by School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine in 2024. Prof. Zhou received his post-doctoral training as a Medical Statistician at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He earned his Ph.D. in Data Science from School of Data Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. Before joining HKU, Prof. Zhou worked as Assistant Professor at Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Prof. Zhou specialises in advanced analytical methodologies, including big data analytics, medical statistics, longitudinal cohort study designs, with expertise in predictive modelling, pharmacoepidemiology, trajectory modeling, causal inference model, and cost-effectiveness health economics. He also applies health informatics techniques such as text mining and large language models (LLMs) for high-dimensional complex multi-modal patient data to identify disease patterns and trajectories in real-world data. His research focuses on metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD, previously termed fatty liver disease), examining its epidemiology, progression, and risk stratification in primary care populations. In addition to liver-specific outcomes, his work addresses the multi-system impact of MASLD, including cardiovascular diseases (e.g., coronary artery disease, heart failure), chronic kidney disease (e.g., diabetic nephropathy, renal injury), cognitive dysfunction (e.g., dementia, mild cognitive impairment), infectious diseases (e.g., viral hepatitis, sepsis, HIV, EBV), and its interplay with gastrointestinal disorders (e.g., peptic ulcer disease, colorectal neoplasia). He also conducts health services research on MASLD care pathways, aiming to improve screening uptake, referral efficiency, treatment adherence, and linkage to care within existing primary care programmes (e.g., RAMP-DM, CDCC), supported by external collaborations with hospitals and clinics across both urban and rural settings in the Greater Bay Area.

Seeking MPhil/PhD/Post-Doc candidates
We are seeking motivated graduate students to conduct research on metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease using large-scale cohort data, spanning epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, and health services research, using medical statistics, data science, artificial intelligence, and large-language models (LLMs). We welcome new research ideas in these areas. For further information about the project and suitability, please email Dr. Jiandong Zhou (jdzhou@hku.hk)”